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| Hannibal Hamlin (1809-1891) |
Vice presidents rarely
cut any swath, and few people know much about them unless they succeed to the
Presidency. Because Lincoln had a
different vice president for his second term (Andrew Johnson who became
president on Lincoln’s death), his first VP, Hannibal Hamlin, has been all but
forgotten.
Hamlin was only six
months younger than Lincoln, born in Paris Hill, Maine, on August 27, 1809. He began practicing law in 1833 in Hampden,
Maine, a little south of Bangor, and married the same year. Politically, he favored the Jacksonian
Democrats. He served in the Maine State
Legislature from 1836 to 1841. He became
a member of the U. S. House of Representatives in 1842, which he held for two
terms. He served in the Maine State Legislature
again for about a year, then was elected to the U. S. Senate to fill a vacancy,
and won re-election to that office in 1851.
His term in the Senate coincided with Lincoln’s in the U. S. House of
Representatives, although they didn’t meet at that time. Hamlin was elected governor to the State of
Maine in 1856, but he resigned to remain in the Senate for another term.
By this time,
his strong views on the abolition of slavery and the repeal of the Missouri
Compromise led him to withdraw formally from the Democrat Party. He turned to the new Republican Party, which
reflected his political views, and worked to build that party’s platform and
support. After helping to run campaigns
in 1860 to nominate Lincoln as the Republican Party’s presidential hopeful, he
was chosen as Lincoln’s running mate, and served one term as Vice
President. He left that office in 1865,
and enlisted in the U. S. Army as a private for the duration of the war (only a
few months). He held various private jobs until 1869, when he again became a U.
S. Senator, serving until 1881. With President
Garfield’s appointment, he served as Minister to Spain from 1881 to 1882. He died on the Fourth of July, 1891, in
Bangor, Maine, not quite two months short of his 82nd birthday. (1) A statue of him stands in the Capitol
Building in National Statuary Hall.
This short
biography serves to illustrate the life of a man dedicated to public service,
with many years of experience in a variety of political positions. By 1860, Hamlin had achieved national renown
as a man of character and integrity, incorruptible, and strongly in favor of
the abolition of slavery without being violently radical.
Hamlin’s reputation
garnered the nomination for the Vice Presidency. He was a stronger abolitionist than Lincoln,
but was not as radical as some of the Republicans, including William Seward,
the party’s leader, whose abolition views were too strong for the palate of
most and, in effect, cut him from the race.
Campaign
organizers had a field day with Lincoln’s and Hamlin’s names. The two men were
obviously meant to be linked together: There was Hamlin, neatly inserted into “AbraHAM LINcoln.” This connection was used on campaign posters and banners
across the country. (1)
The Republican
convention results – Lincoln for President – did not please everyone in any of
the four contending parties. In July of
1860, the Hon. James L. Orr of South Carolina stated that “Lincoln and Hamlin,
the Black Republican nominees, will be elected in November next, and the South
will then decide the great question whether they will submit to the domination
of Black Republican rule - .” (7) (It’s interesting to note that four months
before the elections, one Southern leader was quite sure of its results. Did
the South wish to lose the election, to give them an excuse to secede? See my
blog post about the secession chip that South Carolina had cultivated on its shoulder
since the country’s inception – “The Tariff of Abominations, May 13, 1828”.)
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| 1860 Political Campaign Cartoon: The united, Republican Lincoln-Hamlin train bears down on the split Democrat Party, divided against itself. |
Lincoln was not
done with Hamlin yet. He sent Hamlin to
New York State to woo Seward personally into accepting the position of
Secretary of State in his Cabinet.
Seward was still licking the wound of his loss to Lincoln, quite a blow
to the noted leader of the Republican Party.
Lincoln’s hesitation in asking for Seward’s acceptance of the post,
which raised public speculation by the opposition press that Lincoln didn’t
really want Seward at all, exacerbated Seward’s feeling of rejection, but
Lincoln’s kind letters, one a formal request and the other a personal one
expressing friendship and explaining why he took so long to ask, mollified
Seward. He finally accepted, to the long-term benefit of both men and of the
country.
By the end of
March, 1861, the Cabinet appointments were nearly complete. Horace Greeley, editor of the New York
Tribune who favored Lincoln, could not contain his delight at the
selections: “Yes, we did, by desperate fighting, succeed in getting five
honest and noble men into the Cabinet - by a fight that you never saw equaled
in intensity and duration ... by the determined courage and clearheaded
sagacity of Old Abe himself, powerfully backed by Hamlin, who is a jewel.” (10)
Of course,
secession of states began immediately after the November election. Only a month
into the new administration, the South fired upon Fort Sumter in Charleston,
South Carolina, and the war, so long speculated, was now a reality. Lincoln sent Hamlin to New York City to
monitor troop recruitments and movements (7), and
“to aid the leading men ... in formulating and executing
plans to defend the Union. ... By the time [Hamlin] got to New York, on
April 23, the city of Washington was threatened by rioting secessionist mobs in
Maryland. Hamlin set up headquarters ...
and talked with an endless line of people from all over the nation. When Washington was completely cut off from
the rest of the country for a short while, Hamlin was, in effect, at the head
of an emergency government.” (1)
Once controls
had been effected on Maryland and troops arrived in Washington City for its
defense and to build an army, Lincoln sent Hamlin back to Maine in May to help
raise troops. Hamlin himself attended
the recruiting camps. He found green
troops with no muskets for drill, so he pulled apart a picket fence and issued
the stakes to the men to use in learning their manual of arms. (1)
The Congress
came back into session in July, and Hamlin returned to Washington.
Hamlin was
accustomed to vigorous political activity, from his years as state legislator,
state governor, U. S. Congressman, and U. S. Senator. He had been instrumental in the
administration’s early days, standing firm in crisis. Now, even though the war was all-consuming,
the administration’s day-to-day actions settled into a certain rhythm. The
mundane tasks of a Vice President, however, traditionally limited at best,
chafed Hamlin. He was capable of greater
challenges.
He was not without
credibility: Lincoln relied on him heavily for advice, especially in matters of
emancipation and the use of Negro troops in the conduct of the war. Lincoln wanted him included in the councils
of government, and invited him to attend Cabinet meetings. Hamlin did so early on, but his attendance
gradually diminished. He felt that he
was an “unofficial consulting member,” (1) that unofficial status stifling his
wont to speak freely as an advisor in the meetings.
Hamlin began to
work behind the lines, using his position to strengthen his political
interests, quietly. So quietly that even
those who frequented the White House regularly failed to notice his activity,
and began to consider him a “non-entity.” (2)
His presence in the administration was so quiet that one of Lincoln’s
secretaries, William O. Stoddard, stated,
I
do not now remember that I ever saw Vice President Hamlin at the White House,
though he may have been there a few times for all that. It seems that a sort of etiquette has been
established, in accordance with which it is not considered in good taste for
the second officer of the Republic to meddle much with public business, and
which, at all events, keeps him away from the Executive Mansion. It would be difficult to give a good reason why
he should not be numbered among the “constitutional advisors” of the President;
but the contrary custom seems to be pretty firmly established. (9)
But he worked
on. No sooner had the First Battle of
Bull Run been fought (and lost) in July 1861, than he was in Lincoln’s office
with Senators Charles Sumner of Massachusetts and Zachariah Chandler of
Michigan, all three urging the President to make slavery the prime issue of the
war. Sumner pushed for emancipation to
allow recruitment of the Negroes into military service. Chandler believed in emancipation in
anticipation of the chaos it would cause throughout the South. Although Lincoln listened carefully, as he
always did, he declined the suggestions on the grounds that these actions were
premature. (11)
Hamlin was not
deterred. Lincoln was under pressure
from several fronts to do something about the slavery issue, including
Frederick Douglass. By June 1862,
Lincoln was considering different options by which to effect an emancipation
proclamation. He invited Hamlin to the
Soldiers’ Home, about three miles from the Executive Mansion where the Lincolns
spent the summer, to review an early draft of what was to become The
Emancipation Proclamation. They secreted
themselves behind the locked doors of the library, and Lincoln read the complex
document to Hamlin. Lincoln was
apprehensive of Hamlin’s criticism, knowing Hamlin’s vehemence on the subject,
but knowing that though Hamlin’s criticism could be harsh, it would be clear,
direct, and valuable. Hamlin listened,
and responded simply, “There is no criticism to be made.” (4)
The Emancipation
Proclamation, released in September 1862 after a much needed Union victory in
the Battle of Antietam Creek, was very well received by many Northern leaders,
and it was hailed by newspapers across the country. But the issuance of the Proclamation and the
reality of what could be done were two different things. Several months passed, and to the Radical
Republicans (an active and vocal faction of the Republican Party), Lincoln did
not appear to be doing anything with the Proclamation, with the blacks, or with
slavery in general. After all, Lincoln
could make the proclamation freeing all slaves within those states and
territories currently in rebellion, but who would enforce this freedom?
Lincoln's continued
resistance to black enlistment, for a variety of reasons, prompted these
pro-abolitionists to approach Hamlin in early January 1863. They proposed to support him if he would run
against Lincoln in the 1864 Presidential campaign. Even as frustrated as he was himself with
Lincoln for not moving as fast as he would have liked on these issues, he
refused them, saying, “I am loyal to Lincoln, and it is our duty now to lay
aside our personal feelings and stand by the President.” (11) Lincoln’s stance was more moderate than his
own, but Hamlin recognized all along that Lincoln, in running a country at war,
was dealing with a larger picture than slavery alone, and had to move more
judiciously than many political factions may have liked. As he said much later, “I was more radical
than [Lincoln]. I was urging him; he was
holding back ... And he was the wiser probably, as events prove.” (1)
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| (Tell me these men can't fight -) |
Hamlin also used
his office to some degree to curry favors from the President, primarily in
assigning associates to various posts, and in assigning government contracts for
military supplies to New England businesses.
Hamlin generally went directly to Lincoln with his requests, including
those for military appointments. As a
result, he irritated Stanton no end, through whom Hamlin should have
worked. At Hamlin’s recommendation,
Lincoln endorsed putting the Chicopee [Massachusetts] Works into operation to
manufacture cannon. Hamlin also
requested that Lincoln appoint a Maine man as consul general of Canada. (7)
For one who
receives little or no mention in most histories of Lincoln’s presidency, whom
Stoddard never saw in the White House and whom Noah Brooks (a newspaper
correspondent and friend of Lincoln’s) deemed a non-entity, somehow Hamlin’s
administrative presence by mid-war was beginning to wear. The reasons why he was “a jewel” in 1861 no
longer applied; the country had changed.
By the time of Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address in November 1863, when the
whole Lincoln family came down with a mild form of smallpox called varioloid,
it occurred to political movers and shakers that the President could die,
although in reality he was far from it.
(The administration had become almost immune to the regular onslaught of
assassination threats they received in the mail, and they had for some time
stopped considering these letters terribly threatening.) A general belief somehow grew into an urban myth,
that if Lincoln died, Hamlin could not measure up to the task, or perhaps
hungered too much for the office. (8) No
one seemed to remember that Hamlin’s political experience was far greater than
Lincoln’s. Stoddard in his journal seems
to reflect the attitude of the day when he says: “[Hamlin] would be President
if Mr. Lincoln should die, and there is no means by which you can form an
opinion of his capacity as dictator.” (9)
(This statement makes one wonder if Stoddard was a Union man; an
interesting observation from one who hardly remembered Hamlin’s presence in the
White House.)
When the
Republican National Convention convened in Baltimore in early June 1864 (4),
party leaders had several names to nominate for a new Vice President. They wanted to present a broader platform,
and felt that Hamlin made the ticket favor abolitionism too singularly. They and others repeatedly asked Lincoln for
his preference, if he wanted Hamlin to stay on or if he wanted to work with
someone new, but Lincoln consistently demurred, refusing to influence the
convention. If anything was clear,
Lincoln wanted the convention to decide for itself. (11) He believed that the convention should represent
the people in their choice. To this day,
no one conclusively knows whom Lincoln preferred, and it may be that he favored
each man for different but important qualities that they could bring to the
office. He knew and liked each man.
Andrew Johnson
of Tennessee was ultimately nominated, even by Hamlin’s Maine men, for the party
felt that Johnson represented strong portions of rebel states which had
remained loyal to the Union, eastern Tennessee being one of those regions. They also believed that Johnson’s Southern
roots might do much to mend relations between North and South after the war
ended, which was clearly in sight.
Lincoln, a
shrewd judge of men, knew of Hamlin’s dissatisfaction with the Vice Presidency,
which office Hamlin often referred to as “the fifth wheel of a coach.” (1) Although Hamlin wanted to remain, he now
found himself outside most political circles.
The position was not the pro-active role which he had come to relish as
a state legislator, governor, U. S. Congressman, and Senator. Perhaps if Hamlin had been more up-front
about wanting to keep the post, Lincoln might have gone to bat for him. But Hamlin didn’t, and Lincoln didn’t. But
Hamlin was probably torn between the potential of the office and the dismal
prospect of four more years of chafing at the bit (unaware, of course, of
Lincoln’s coming demise). On March 4, 1865, Vice President Hamlin rode in the
carriage on Pennsylvania Avenue to the Capitol and watched, somewhat disgruntled
by the situation, as Andrew Johnson was sworn in as the new Vice President.
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BIBLIOGRAPHICAL RESOURCES
1. Harwood, Michael. “In The Shadow of
Presidents: The American Vice-Presidency and Succession System.” Philadelphia,
New York: J. B. Lippincott Company, 1966.
2. Brooks, Noah. “Lincoln Observed: The
Civil War Dispatches of Noah Brooks.” Michael Burlingame, ed. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press,
1998.
3. Miers, Earl Schenck, ed. “Lincoln Day By
Day: A Chronology.” Dayton. Ohio: Morningside, 1991.
4. Kunhardt, Phillip B., Jr., Phillip B.
Kunhardt III, and Peter W. Kunhardt. “Lincoln: An Illustrated Biography.” New
York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1992.
5.Hesseltine, William B. “Lincoln and the
War Governors.” New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1955.
6. Nicolay, John G., and John Hay. “Abraham
Lincoln: A History.” New York: The Century Company, 1890.
7.Lincoln, Abraham. “The Collected Works of
Abraham Lincoln.” Roy P. Basler, ed. New
Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 1953.
8. Randall, J. G. “Lincoln The President:
Midstream.” New York: Dodd, Mead and Company, 1953.
9. Stoddard, William O. “Inside the White
House in War Times: Memoirs and Reports of Lincoln’s Secretary.” Michael
Burlingame, ed. Lincoln, Nebraska:
University of Nebraska Press, 2000.
(Stoddard’s edition printed in 1890.)
10. Nevins, Allan. “The Emergence of Lincoln,
Vol. II.” New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1950.
11. Donald, David Herbert. “Lincoln.” New
York: Simon & Schuster, 1995.
12. Dorman, Michael. “The Second Man: The
Changing Role of the Vice Presidency.” New York: Delacorte Press, 1968.
13. Hamlin, Charles Eugene. “The Life and
Times of Hannibal Hamlin.” Cambridge: Riverside Press, 1899.
